iPad suffering from Wi-Fi issues

User reports are coming in from the States that there seems to be an issue with the iPad. The Apple support site and other forums are full of users complaining about the weak Wi-Fi signals they're getting on their brand new tablet computers.

It's being suggested that, like the with new iMacs, the Wi-Fi antenna on the iPad is very small and located behind the Apple logo. The added trouble with the tablet form is that that logo is going to be resting against something more often than not, exacerbating the weak receiver problem even further.

Being a hardware issue, it's unlikely something that Apple can fix with a software update but whether or not the problem is serious or widespread enough for the company to consider a recall is unknown. It would appear though, that the home is a key environment where Apple expects the iPad to succeed and so weak Wi-Fi, and therefore poor content streaming, could be a serious issue.

More as we get it.

UPDATE: Apple has now created a Knowledge Base page for the iPad Wi-Fi issues giving the following advice:

Under certain conditions, iPad may not automatically rejoin a known Wi-Fi network after restart or waking from sleep. This can occur with some third-party Wi-Fi routers that are dual-band capable when:

Using the same network name for each network

Using different security settings for each network

If you encounter this issue, try the following:

Create separate Wi-Fi network names to identify each band. This can be done easily by appending one or more characters to the current network name. Example: Add a G to the 802.11b/g network name and an N to the 802.11n network name.Ensure that both networks use the same security type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, and so on)